I first wrote about Access-a-Bus on August 6, 2008, 3,743 days ago. By the standard of the separate and unequal treatment of people with disabilities in Halifax Regional Municipality, the Siege of Stalingrad at 872 days was the blink of an eye. In fact, the Siege against People with Disabilities is the third longest siege in history, tied with the Siege of Ishiyama Honganji in Japan (1570 – 1580).
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| The Siege of Halifax |
Perfectly plausible alternatives have been proposed, the best of which - taxi vouchers - is cheaper, faster and much more flexible than Access-a-Bus. HRM even commissioned a study in 2010 which recommended a trial run. I believe that never happened.
Meanwhile, the number of accessible cabs has plummeted, from a high of around 60 to less than 20 today. Hence we have letters like this:
My downstairs neighbor is currently having a similar experience.
Make no mistake, Access-a-Bus is an egregious act of discrimination, worthy of Montgomery Alabama in 1955. Separate and unequal. Someone ought to complain to the Human Rights Commission. But they would need abundant patience, the average time from acceptance to closing of complaint being 230 days in 2017.
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Now the mayor is a nice person and the council is generally well-meaning, but their willful self-interest is just irresponsible. For that's what it's about - protecting vested interests at Metro Transit. Ineffective managers with a large fleet of the wrong vehicles see the taxi vouchers as a threat.
Indeed it is a threat, but people with disabilities have paid a heavy price, and the cab shortage is starting to squeeze others.
There's really no excuse. All cabs in London are accessible. Tourists expect that in a well-run city.
What does that make HRM?
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